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10th September 2010

“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.”

Eric Hoffer

This entry was posted on Friday, September 10th, 2010 at 1:00 and is filed under QOTD. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Responses to “10th September 2010”

  1. archaeopteryx Says:
    September 10th, 2010 at 8:01

    Religious fanatics are very likely to commit civil right violations of non-believers the name of their imaginary friends. I would definitely by a “gentle cynic” if this were not the case. As it is, I am bewildered by believers and speak my mind when I think it helpful.

  2. tech Says:
    September 10th, 2010 at 12:07

    I,m bewildered by you quote archaeopteryx. I don’t quite understand.

  3. Dan Says:
    September 10th, 2010 at 12:30

    Tech,
    If you’ve never heard of the atrocious human rights violations that Christians and Muslims have committed over the centuries, you get an “F” in History of Religion.

  4. Ryedo Says:
    September 10th, 2010 at 13:10

    The opposite of the religious fanatic is the non-religious fanatic; who usually happens to be the gentle atheist or, believe it or not, theist.

  5. Devout Atheist Says:
    September 10th, 2010 at 15:17

    I believe Not!!
    Thank you anyway Ryedo.

  6. archaeopteryx Says:
    September 10th, 2010 at 19:24

    tech: what I meant was that the religious seem to need to enact their beliefs into law. I am not talking about the obvious things such as murder and other forms of violence – any sane society will protect its citizens against that sort of thing.

    I am thinking about victimless ‘crimes’ such as blasphemy, and punishing otherwise consensual behaviour between adults that need concern no-one else. For example, my wife and I broke the law in Ireland during the 70s and 80s when we planned our family.

    Another example is the insane position of the RCC on the use of condoms in parts of the world imperilled by AIDS.

    Sorry if my original post wasn’t clear.

  7. Follower of Christ Says:
    September 11th, 2010 at 20:20

    @archaeopteryx: I’m a Christian, but I don’t believe that the rules in the Bible should be extended to society. I don’t believe that “the religious seem to need to enact their beliefs into law.” If by some strange turn of events I became Prime Minister, I would try to lower the abortion limit (can’t remember what its technical name is) but I wouldn’t make blasphemy or sex outside of marriage illegal. We are given free will, and while I believe God’s laws are there to protect us (as society’s laws are), if people want to break them then the only thing Christians can do is love them.

    I definitely agree that condemning the use of condoms is ridiculous and maybe as far as inhumane.

    But before blaming the all of the world’s problems on religion, think about people like Stalin – an atheist committing heinous crimes. Of course I’m even close to assuming that all atheist are Josef Stalins, but please use the same common sense when addressing “religious people”.

    I’m sorry if any of this is unclear or offensive; I’m still young and really have trouble expressing myself well, so apologies for any offense caused.